Frances at Virginia Beach

I am promiscuous, thinking of these

Fascinations I will never know as people:

Some have erected a sail in the sand

With a sheet. A black man, head to toe

In red, ties and unties

His white sash. He cuts karate

At the wind.

A girlish boy slowly somersaults on wet towels.

I wish I could know him, I guess.

My husband waits for him to hurt himself.

The boy drinks red wine between movements,

Staring hypnotically at the back

Of a girl's head.

Now that I'm pastel with pregnancy

People say I may not be so promiscuous.

But I'm in as many pieces as before.

I'm the man in red and the drunken acrobat.

Nothing ties together.

If my husband weren't here

I'd go to the young boy and try him

With lipstick

And not get to know him.

My husband, who won't admit the surface

Enough to wear lipstick,

Lies here in this disturbingly almost poem of a beach.

He waits with a pen for some pain

To tie everything to him in a poem,

To give the scene depth, take him inside.

He thinks it can be done

With pain.